The Last Hour
by BelieveYouAre
Summary: A lot can happen in an hour.


He used to come over every day. He would talk to me, fix the buttons on my shirt, watch movies with me. But then he met Vanessa, and she became his number one priority. He was no longer there to protect me from Cartman at school. He didn't talk to me to keep me in a 'calmer' state of mind. He left me alone, all alone. He turned out just like my parents. They acted like they cared until they found something else to focus on. For him: Vanessa. For them: Harbucks.

I guess I should've seen it coming. I mean, really? Why would anyone want to stick around the twitchy blonde kid who's addicted to coffee and can't even button his shirt correctly? Not my parents, not my "friends", and not Craig. Hell, the only ones who stayed were the gnomes, and they only wanted my underwear.

I remember when I first met Vanessa. She was beautiful, but ugly all the same. Her hair was silken black, and fell to the middle of her back in soft waves. Her skin was lightly tanned, almost like sand on a hot day, and her nose was slightly upturned. She was taller than me, about the same height as Craig, standing at nearly six feet. Her lips seemed to be set in a permanent pout, and she was curvy in all the right places. But her eyes...

I hated her eyes.

They were the color of the ocean at midnight; dark blue, almost black. They were small, but that was also due to them always being narrowed, sometimes at no one in particular.

Usually, me.

Her eyes betrayed her apathetic face. Whenever she looked at me, they burned with hate I hadn't known a person could feel. The hate she harbored could've filled all of a dozen serial killers, and then still had more than enough to compete with Ms. Crabtree, our evil bus driver in elementary school.

Oh, how I hated her eyes.

She never really liked me, but she did like to hurt me.

_As Craig sulked away to help his little sister, Ruby, Vanessa stood from where she sat on Craig's bed. She stared down at me with disgust smeared across her features. Her lip was pulled back in a snarl as she stood to her full height, towering over me by half a foot._

_"Listen, you twitchy loser, Craig is_ mine_, now. We're together, and he doesn't have time for shorties like you, got it? Stay away from Craig, I mean it. Because if you don't," she dragged her blood red painted fingernail across my cheek. My eye twitched at the sting, but I didn't move._

_"...I_ will _hurt you," Vanessa hissed._

_I gulped loudly, and with a nod, I backed away to the door._

_"Gah!" I exclaimed._

_"Whoa, Tweek! Are you okay, dude?" Craig stressed._

_"Yeah, I'm f-fine!" I assured him, twitching violently and clutching my lukewarm thermos in my hands._

_His eyes zeroed in on my face, a frown pulling on the muscles in his face. "What happened to your cheek?" he wondered aloud._

_"N-nothing!" I gasped. "I-I gotta go,"_

Both physically and mentally.

_"I_ told _you to stay away from me and Craig," Vanessa sneered._

_"He's my friend," I whimpered._

_"I don't give a sh*t! He's_ my _boyfriend, not yours, you queer. I warned you." Vanessa rolled her shoulders, emitting soft cracks and pops._

_My eyes widened and I pressed my body against the wall of my bedroom, hoping that it would suddenly just open up and swallow me. I dug my fingers into the cracked drywall as she approached me, and dark and sadistic grin creeping over her face._

_I almost thought that my mom would come in and help me, but scolded myself before I could._

_She was working, and so was Dad._

_My face stung, my eyes burned, and my body ached. The room was blurry, my thoughts slurred. Despite this disability, I could see her tall figure suddenly drop from my window, and my bedroom door opened._

_"Tweek?"_

It was as if she had no heart. She was designed to kill; whether that be the mind or the person, she was there to destroy anything that was there.

I don't think Craig ever really forgot about me. He still comes over from time to time, but he had Vanessa to be with, too. He talked about her to me all the time, and when he wasn't talking about her, he was asking me if I was okay.

_"She's great, dude, really. She's like my dream girl. She asks about you, too!" Craig gushed._

_"Th-that's great, Craig." I smiled lightly._

_Looking down, I pulled my sleeve down further as I saw the black and purple mark showing at the edge. I returned to Craig's face to find him staring at me strangely._

_"Are you okay, Tweek? You're always doing something when I wanna hang out, and you always have bruises. What's going on?"_

_He sounded genuinely concerned, and that brought tears to my eyes. _

_He cared about me, but I knew that that would only hurt me later on._

_Fingers slipped through the collar of my shirt, grasping the buttons and undoing them one-by-one._

_"Wh-what are you doing?" I gasped._

_Craig didn't answer, but I didn't move._

_He slid my green shirt off my shoulders, and, grasping my arms, pulled me to my feet._

_With a sudden tug, he had pulled my jeans to my ankles._

_I shuddered under his speculating gaze, trying to cover myself by wrapping my arms around my torso._

_Craig shook his head, and pulled my arms back to my side, this time, not releasing my left hand._

_"Don't," he murmured._

_Craig ran his right hand over my ribcage, feeling each and every bone. He let his fingers lightly slide over each and every bruise, and he stayed calm during each and every moment._

_"So skinny," he whispered, " and so many bruises."_

_I let out the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding, shaking and trembling beneath his hands._

_"Tweek, I-" but he never finished. With a strangled sound, Craig slung his bag over his shoulder and turned on his heel, never again mentioning that day._

"C-Craig?" I murmured softly.

"Tweek, what's wrong?" his voice sounded so far away through the speakers in my cell phone.

"Can you just come over?" I asked timidly.

"Yeah, I'll be right there." He hung up.

I threw my phone to the corner of my room, I wouldn't need it again, anyway. I walked to the bathroom, reaching into the medicine cabinet and pulling out a bottle of painkillers. For some reason, I hardly twitched.

I almost felt...calm?

The front door opened and closed downstairs. Craig was here.

I swallowed the pills dry. They snaked their way down my throat and sat icily in the pit of my stomach.

"Tweek?" Craig poked his head into my bedroom.

I sat shakily on my bed, nodding at him. He walked in slowly, sitting on the bed next to me. I didn't say anything, just lied on my side, my head sinking into my pillow.

Craig was silent as well, and his soft breathing was the only thing that let me know he was still there.

The bed dipped beside me, and I could feel Craig's heat radiating against my back. He touched my arm. I shuddered.

"Jesus Christ, Tweek," he gasped. "You're freezing."

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

Craig moved closer to me, so close I could hear his heartbeat. "What's going on, Tweek?"

"What do you mean?"

"Something's wrong. I can feel it." His body was so warm against mine. It was nice. Most of my body was numb, anyway.

"It's nothing," I assured him weakly.

"Tell me, please," he pleaded.

I sighed. "Can you promise to stay with me until I fall asleep?"

There was no hesitation. "Yes."

"Please don't leave me,"

"I won't," he promised. "I'll stay by your side forever."

As he said those words, I began to drift into the darkness leading me to the end.

...

_I kept my promise, stayed by him until his breaths evened out and his face went slack._

_He was so cold. I tried to warm him, but I just couldn't seem to get enough heat into his body. I stared at the clock. Hours had passed, it was ten o' clock._

_Where were his parents?_

_"Tweek," I murmured, shaking his shoulder. "Tweek, wake up."_

_He didn't move. I shook him harder. It was only then that I realized his breathing had evened out_ too _much, to the point where I couldn't even see his chest rise and fall._

_"Tweek?" I repeated, this time, louder. "Tweek!"_

_Tears burned behind my eyelids._

"Tweek, I-I'm sorry!"


End file.
